Window 17

The seventeenth window in the cycle dates from 2013. It is located in the north wall of the church, where no sunlight can penetrate. The windows on this side of the church deal with the evening of one’s own life and the view into infinite eternity. Karl-Martin Hartmann uses dark blue tones in the windows to reinforce the natural darkness of this part of the church interior, further distorting the light symmetry of the church.

The color scheme of the window is reminiscent of the blue hour, with the blue background and yellow dots resembling a starry sky on a clear night.

In the center, one must find one’s way along a green path between demonic figures reminiscent of the carvings in the choir stalls of St. Nicolai.

The pink-purple area above was created based on an image of the Abell 2218 galaxy cluster taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. Its gravitational field causes a gravitational lensing effect, which provides evidence of dark matter. Karl-Martin Hartmann uses astrophysical effects here as a “description of creation using the means of today,” as he says.

The white arrow line that seems to stretch from the bottom of the window to the top of the tracery is striking, as if it wants to liberate the gaze from the personal world and direct it into the vastness of space, saying: The journey is not yet over.

The scientist Hartmann brings our small, troubled earthly existence into conversation with the vastness of distant worlds and stars and satellites billions of light-years away. God’s world is wider than we think, and it is part of the greatness of human beings to dwell in it and be allowed to remain there forever.